The present invention relates generally to a grinding apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to an exchanging apparatus for exchanging a turn table having a polishing cloth adhesively attached to the surface thereof for smoothly finishing the surface of a wafer usable for a semiconductor device with a new one.
A chemical mechanical polishing process is utilized for polishing a single crystal silicon. This chemical mechanical polishing process is an operation for smoothly finishing the surface of a silicon wafer while feeding a polishing liquid to the working part by thrusting the silicon wafer to be processed against a rotating turn table having a polishing cloth adhesively attached thereto.
Since high flatness accuracy is required for practicing the step of polishing the silicon wafer, it is necessary that the worn polishing cloth is often exchanged with a new one.
To exchange the polishing cloth on the turn table with a new one, operations for peeling the worn polishing cloth from the turn table after stopping the grinding apparatus, and then adhesively attaching a new polishing cloth to the turn table are required. A series of operations as mentioned above are hitherto mostly achieved with an operator's hand.
Since abrasive grains are undesirably attached to the surface of the turn table after the used worn polishing cloth is peeled from the turn table, there are many operations to be performed in association with adhesive attaching of a new polishing cloth, e.g., cleaning the surface of the turn table with pure water or the like.
Since chemical mechanical polishing work is achieved for semiconductor wafer while a polishing cloth is often manually exchanged with a new one in the above-described manner, many manhours are required for the exchanging operation. In addition, there arises a problem that abrasive grains are scattered away when the used worn polishing cloth is peeled from the working turn table, causing them to be undesirably attached to a semiconductor producing apparatus.